About Me

When not nosing, tasting, drinking and reading about malt whisky, I own one of Israel's premiere boutique coaching practices, specializing in small businesses and executive teams.
Trained in the law, I was an international law attorney and took part in Israel's peace negotiations with the Palestinians, as well as representing my country at the UN for parts of the negotiations on the implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Later I was appointed to the military bench.
My favorite thing, other than whisky, is teaching.
You can contact me through the social media buttons above or by email: michael(at)maltandoak.com, replacing the (at) with an @.

Statement of Integrity and Guidelines

Malt and Oak is an independent whisky blog, offering my own views, opinions and news from the world of malt whisky.
These are my guidelines:

1. All whisky reviews published are of whiskies I have personally tasted and noted. Guest bloggers only write about their own personal tastings.

2. With the exception of official whisky samples, I accept no consideration whatsoever from any distillery, bottler, distributor, drink company or store for my opinions.

3. I maintain strict impartiality and objectivity in tasting all whiskies, not least when tasting official samples. Any review of official whisky samples sent to me will be so noted in the post.

4. I will accept invitations to tastings, events and official visits, and full disclosure will be made on any tasting notes and articles resulting from these events or visits.

5. Any sample received over 30 ml in volume is shared with fellow whisky bloggers. In any event, no sample larger than 100 ml will be accepted.

6. No advertisements promoting specific brands will be accepted.

7. I will answer any inquiry by my readers as quickly and as fully as possible.

8. Should I give a link purchase the reviewed whisky, it will be given free of any commercial interest. The link given will always point to cheapest selling price I found on the web. No commission is paid, nor any other consideration given, for such link.

9. As of July 2017, I serve as Douglas Laing’s Israel brand ambassasdor. As such, I will obviously not be posting reviews of Douglas Laing products.

Milk and Honey Distillery – Tasting Cask 003 and an Update

Milk and Honey is rapidly moving toward the beginning of commercial production, with the last piece of the puzzle, the mash tun, set to be installed at the distillery by the end of this month, right as the new visitor center should be opening under the management of Keren Mosessco Kariel.

At that point, the real distillation is set to begin. Some 50 beautifully charred ex bourbon casks have already made their way to Tel Aviv, after traveling all the way from the US, each with some barrel strength bourbon sloshing inside it to prevent it from drying out on the way (yes, I did taste it…). You can see the lovely video the distillery made of the barrels on their Facebook account here.

Photo Credit: Tomer Goren on Instagram (@to14go)

You’ll surely recall my previous distillery visit and progress report on this cask, if not, you can read it here before you move on to my notes on cask 003.

Appearance: Coppery gold, complete with the red hue. Necklace releasing a beautiful set of thin droplets.

Nose: Malt with a deep milk chocolate and stewed peaches. It’s young age is still very much on the nose, but warm wood spices are beginning to develop with cinnamon and clove.
Directly drawn from the cask, this dram needs water, which brings out a winey quality over creamy malt.

Palate: Viscous and a tad winey, with more of the new make coming through with a bit of water added. Malt, white and black pepper and a certain tart note are very distinct with water. There’s also a hint of sweetness there, just beyond actually featuring on the palate.

Linger: Wine tartness and peppery spice remain in the mouth, with sweetish spice notes down the gullet. That elusive sweet note from the palate shows up on the tongue with water, and a creamy milk chocolate remains.

Conclusion

At eight months, this work in progress is coming along nicely. This was distilled from a different mash than the actual commercial whisky will come from and fermented off site, so I assume that the actual Milk and Honey product will be different, but as a proof of concept, this is coming along quite nicely.

If you do make it to Tel Aviv, be sure to visit the distillery and let me know, maybe I can join you there for a dram or two…

One comment on “Milk and Honey Distillery – Tasting Cask 003 and an Update”

Thank you for the review and update. I can’t wait for this distillery to start producing and becoming a bit more widely available. Getting our hands on a bottle from Israel will be such a wonderful addition to our world whisky collection.